We’ve been fighting with this all winter, finally getting the pump fixed, with a surprise find, and the diverter added in January while the ejector was still frozen.
Since we got the ejector thawed and the diverter was no longer being used, I’ve been checking the pump pretty regularly. Not obsessively, like I did for the first while, but still frequently.
One of the things I noticed, and even managed to time, is that the pump takes longer to drain the tank than it used to. Talking to my brother, I was thinking there might be more gunk stuck in the back valve. My brother suggested there could also be gunk partially blocking the venturi valve at the bottom of the ejector. Not something we could check until spring. The back valve on the pump would also be checked. We really want to avoid opening things up if we can, as that risks breaking things, and then we’d really be hooped. So, I just monitor.
I noticed that the water level in the filter started to drop, from filling the cannister entirely, to stayed at the level of the inflow opening. It wasn’t running dry, though, and seemed to stay steady, so I would sometimes top up the cannister after the pump was done, adding a bit of dish detergent to break up any grease that might be coating the pipes to from the cannister to the pipe and maybe clearing away anything in or around the back valve.
I hadn’t done that in a while, as the water level was staying the same and things were working.
When I heard the pump running last night, I decided to check it. Things seemed to be flowing as usual, but it was getting hard to see through the lid of the filter. It was starting to get cloudy from grease and grime.
So when the pump stopped, I opened the filter to wash the inside of the lid. I gave a squirt of detergent into the cannister, then scrubbed the lid at the old laundry sink next to the pump.
Normally, I would have then topped up the filter cannister with water, then put the cover back on.
This time, however, I found the water level in the cannister had actually gone UP – and was still going up, and began to overflow!
I popped the lid on and tightened the ring, and the water level stopped rising.
There are two openings in the filter cannister. Inflow and outflow. With the back valve, water only gets in through the inflow. But the pump was off. When the filter first gets opened, there is a gurgle as water in the cannister drains into the inflow pump, because, gravity. There should never be inflow when the pump is not running, because that would be water running uphill, so to speak.
The other alternative is the water was coming from the bottom. If the back valve was not properly closed, because something is caught in it again, liquid in the pipe to the ejector (and there is always some liquid in there) could flow back into the pump and through the back valve, into the cannister. Again. Gravity. The outflow pipe from the pump itself to the ejector is vertical for a few feet, then runs horizontally along the wall, out the basement and to the ejector.
Once things were closed up, all we could do was wait until the next time the tank was full enough to trigger the pump.
Which was this morning, while my daughter was in the shower.
I heard the pump turn on and it ran for a while before I was able to head down.
Which is when I saw there was NO water flow.
The cannister water level had dropped to the level of the inflow opening, but there was no outflow. Suds in the water showed me that the pump had not gone off during the night, while I was asleep.
I stopped the pump, primed it, turned it on again.
There was an initial splash from the inflow pipe, but no outflow. All it did was make more suds.
I tried again.
Still no outflow.
So I turned off the pump and let my daughter – who was still in the shower – know what was happening.
I then got ready to check on the ejector, in case that was frozen again. It was early enough that the outside cat stuff wasn’t done, so I did that first, then headed towards the barn.
I hadn’t been checking the ejector recently, because of the dangerously cold temperatures we’ve been having. The ejector has heat tape around it, and is sheltered on three sides.
When I got to the ejector, I could see the splash zone in front of it was much smaller, but with the cold we’ve been having, that’s to be expected. The water simply froze faster.
The heat tape was warm, so that was still working, and the nozzle at the top was clear. No evidence that the ejector is frozen again.
While I was doing that, my daughter set up the honey pot in the bathroom again.
*sigh*
I took video of what was happening and sent to my brother. The first thing I would want to do is check that back valve, but we don’t have the tools to do it. Specifically, a heat gun to soften the pipe so it can be taken apart and put back together.
If worse comes to worse, we should be able to set the diverter back up again. It was never put away, with the end just set aside. I didn’t want to have a hole in the wall to close up in the winter, so the pipe is still running through it.
I hate to ask this of him, but I really hope my brother is able to come by tonight to work on this. He hasn’t seen the messages I’ve sent to him yet, though.
Meanwhile, this afternoon, I’m going into town to get that tire on the truck checked. I made sure to check it this morning, after going to the ejector, and it seems to be holding air fine. When I found it low, yesterday, the truck had not been used for several days since the tire got fixed.
Since I’m going to be in town, anyhow, I’ll bring our water jugs to refill at the grocery store after the tire is checked and fixed.
Tomorrow, my daughter and I have our double medical appointment. We will be leaving early, as our first stop will be at the other medical clinic, where I will pick up my medical files to transfer to my new doctor, and get the bloodwork requisition for my mother. I will make sure to check the date of her last blood tests, as they are supposed to be a month apart. I’ll be taking her in to get that done in either late February or early March. Probably early March. Then, the day after tomorrow, I’m doing my mother’s grocery shopping. Next week, we start our stock up shopping trips to the city, and in the middle of that, my daughter has some medical scans that are being done in the town to the north of us. We’ve never been to their hospital/health care centre before.
So getting that tire checked today is pretty important!
Losing our septic again, on top of this, is just s*** icing on a s*** cake.
I am so tired of the plumbing in this place. I understand why we have the system we do, but I really wish was had a gravity septic system, not an ejector system. The less technology there is, the less there is to break down – and I say this as someone who loves my technology!
We got a fair bit of snow last night, though it was very light and fluffy and easy to shovel – and clear off the solar panels for the kibble and water shelter lights! We’re going to need to break little Spewie out to clear the driveway, but not today. We’ll be getting winds off and on today, while tomorrow is supposed to be much more pleasant. We’re supposed to reach a high of -11C/12F this afternoon, but the -16C/3F low of the day is supposed to happen around 7pm this evening, and then it’s supposed to keep warming up overnight until a high of -4C/25F tomorrow, and a high of 0C/32F on Monday!
I am so looking forward to the warmer temperatures!
Along with some shoveling to make room for the truck by the house, I also checked the ejector. The septic pump didn’t turn on during the night, but by the time I heard it running this morning, it was off before I got into the basement to check it. With my theory that gunk from inside the short lengths of pipe between the filter cannister and the back valve got loose and is now stuck in the back vale, I tried an experiment last night. I’d picked up some Dawn Platinum dish detergent to keep in the basement, for when I put in a clean filter basket and need to wash the spare. When I topped up the filter last night, I squirted in some detergent, first, then topped up the water before closing it up. I figured, with the filter draining like it does, it’ll take the detergent with it, and that would help clean out the pipe lengths and back valve the next time the pump turned on.
When I checked the ejector, I could see that water had splashed out for quite some distance, since the area was no longer covered in snow. Beyond how far the water is ejected, it flows down the metal sheet that diverts the flow towards the low area, and that section is completely covered in snow with a water tunnel under it. The snow and ice gives a good indication of how well the ejector is working.
Once I finished my rounds, I backed the truck up to the house and started loading it with garbage while my daughter checked the house and changed whatever garbage cans looked like they needed it, before helping me get the rest of the garbage and recycling out of the old kitchen.
The good thing about the old kitchen not being heated and not having much insulation: the garbage freezes in the winter, and there is no smell! Very important, since we go to the dump more more infrequently in the winter.
Once the truck was loaded (and clear of cats!), I headed out to the dump. The highway was covered in packed snow, with blowing snow buffeting me, so I was definitely taking my time for the drive! Another wintertime bonus: the area in front of the pit is covered in packed snow, so I’m less concerned about driving over something sharp enough to puncture a tire. 🫤
When I got back, my daughter had a couple of bags for the burn pile waiting outside the door, so I added those to the pile. With the warmer weather coming up, we should be able to finally burn that pile of mostly diseased branches, and do the burnable garbage, too. Our burn barrel has finally fallen apart, and the burn ring is full of ashes, so we can’t use either until we can clean those out in the spring or summer.
Not long after I was back, I got a phone call about my brother to talk about the septic pump. After talking about various possible causes throughout the system, we basically came down to the same conclusion: something is stuck in the back valve again, and the only way that could have happened is if there was something in the pipe between the filter cannister and the back valve that came loose. Especially since it was working so well at first. My brother had checked the back valve thoroughly, and it was in excellent condition. As for the pipe that attaches to it, it’s an elbow that is directly attached to the back valve, and he knew that elbow was clear. There’s about 6 inches of pipe between elbows, then another 8 inches or so from that pipe to the filter cannister’s outflow. Not a lot of distance for gunk to build up, but if that rag managed to take however many years it did, to work its way through that little bit of pipe and get stuck in the valve, it’s hard to say what else could have gotten stuck in there that we couldn’t see in between those elbows.
I told my brother what I’d done with the detergent, and he agreed that this might help. The alternative is to take it all apart again, and he wants to avoid that. The more things get taken apart, the more likely something will break. We’re keeping an eye on it, it’s still working, even if it does need to have the filter primed to get it going sometimes. My daughter was in the shower while were were talking, so I went to the basement to see if the pump would turn on, but it didn’t. The tank had been emptied too recently for one shower to trigger the pill switch again. As we were talking, though, I noticed something about the level of the water in the filter.
It was pretty much exactly level with the top of the pump, which is where the back valve is. The back valve is pretty much level with the inflow opening in the filter cannister – at least it is, now that I have something under the cannister to support its weight – and the water level almost completely covers it. So it looks like the water level is equalizing with the height of the valve.
I do wish I’d known more about the pump before all this started. Particularly about the back valve and where it was. Chances are, I would have made the connection with the back valve having problems, much earlier – and possibly gotten it fixed before the ejector froze solid!
Ah, well. Live and learn!
After I got off the phone with my brother, and my daughter was done her shower, I went back down to tend to the filter. I got my daughter to go with me so I could update her and show her what I was doing with the detergent, and what we hoped it would accomplish.
If the detergent doesn’t seem to be helping, I might want to just add some of the Free Flow powder to the filter before topping it up with warm water, instead of cold. While we still use the Free Flow enzymes and bacteria down the drains regularly, those are great for the plumbing and the septic tank, but doesn’t do much for that little section of pipe between the filter and the pump.
All of this stuff, we are extra careful to be sure it won’t damage the pipes or mess with our septic system. That’s something we just never had to think really about when living in the city!
So that is where were at with the septic issues. Now that we finally got the dump run done, we don’t need to go anywhere for some time. With the weather warming up, that means we can catch up with things in an around the house again!
I am just itching to be able to work outside again!
Yesterday, while in a much larger town, I did a bit of grocery stopping. Just a few things to tide us over until we do our first big stock up shop in the city next week. The grocery store I went to has a really good inventory, and I would have loved to get more, but everything was too expensive.
What I forgot to do was bring our water jugs for refilling, so I needed to do that today. Being a much warmer day, I called my mother to see if she needed any errands done, or if she were up to going to the bank.
Thanks go her Meals on Wheels three times a week, her groceries stretch quite a lot further, so all she needed was milk. The only other thing she wanted were some croissants to go with her tea. She discovered croissants only recently and just loves them, and sometimes the grocery store in her town has some excellent prices on them.
So I decided I would get my water refills at her local grocery store, then maybe pick up the sandwich meats they have that are prices better than I’ve seen anywhere else, including the city, on top of my mother’s two items. She was getting her Meals on Wheels today, so I was going to pick up my own lunch of fried chicken at the gas station before going to her place.
Once at the grocery store, I had time to spare before I knew the gas station’s fried chicken would be ready, so I took my time and looked around.
What a difference from yesterday! This grocery store not only had better regular prices, but there were sale prices that were just awesome. Where, yesterday, I didn’t get the extras I would have wanted to, today I got extras I never expected to pick up!
I didn’t get a chance to get a photo before everything was packed up, so here’s just a picture of the reciept.
From the top, the first item is a jar of sliced pickles for sandwiches. The Dawn Ultra is for our basement, to clean the septic pump’s filter basket.
The “bakery reduced” is three bags of croissants for my mother, that cost only $1.75 each. This is even better than Superstore in the city, where they have clamshells of croissants available for $5, which is a great price, but far fewer croissants for the price compared to the tree bags I got. The 2L of milk was hers, too.
The boneless pork was one of the amazing sale prices; you can see on the receipt that the sale price discounted over $17 – more than half price for a very good sized roast! It was the thing with the fresh chicken legs and thighs. I ended up getting two packages of those. If I’d had the budget for it, I would have gotten more!
I got around 500 grams each of the sliced deli meats; the maple ham was a touch under, while the two chicken breasts were a touch over. That is their regular price, which is about $2/100g lower than most places.
The instant pudding was a spur of the moment thing. Four boxes for $5 is a really excellent price, as you can see by the amount discounted. While I just got a flat of 30 eggs yesterday, when I saw that the 18’s of house brand eggs were priced lower than a dozen, I just had to grab one. We can never have too many eggs! The rye breads are regular price; the same brand and price that we get at Walmart.
The water refills were the one thing that is more expensive, both the new caps and the water itself.
So of all this, $9.44 was for my mother. Which means that, of the $106.60 total, after taxes, we paid only $97.16 for our own stuff.
Which was a heck of a lot more than what we paid almost $130 for, yesterday! Particularly since I ended up getting so much meat on this trip!
After I finished the shopping, making sure to bag my mother’s stuff separately, I had time to spare before I would go to the gas station to pick up some fried chicken and wedges for lunch, so I went to a small department store to see what they had. I remembered there were a couple of things my mother wanted from there. One was a candle, for when she says her prayers. The other were slipper socks of some kind. Her feet get cold at night, so she wanted something she could sleep with. I actually found both, though I’m not sure if the slipper socks will work for her. They are supposed to be one size fits all, but my mother has massive bunions, and that might be a problem. We shall see.
I still had extra time, so I parked at the gas station and messaged with my brother for a bit. When I did my morning rounds, I checked the ejector, as he asked, but the pump hadn’t gone off during the night, so there was just fresh snow in front of it. I did feel the heat tape and it was warm, so that’s still working. Before I left home, I made sure to top up the filter on the septic pump and asked my family to keep an ear out for it, as it would probably go off while someone was taking a shower.
After updating my brother on things, I went inside, only to find all the chafing dishes were completely empty. Not even the potato wedges or deep fried perogies and pizza pops that get cooked first were there.
It turns out their frier was on the fritz. The food was being cooked, but it would be a while before anything would be ready.
Thankfully, they had a bank machine, so I took some cash out and went to the Chinese restaurant next to my mother. They are cash only. It’s been a few months since I’ve gotten anything there, so I was far from unhappy with having to change plans.
From there, I finally went to my mother’s. Today was warm enough that I didn’t need to worry about my groceries and the water jugs freezing in the truck cab.
Since I was able to get what my mother needed along with my own stuff, after we had lunch, I did other errands for her. It was her day to do laundry, so I changed her bedding for her, which was enough to make two loads for her. Once those were started, I did some light housework for her, and all those little things that she now finds difficult to do. The one unusual thing was trying to figure out why her TV wasn’t working After trying various things, it just kept reverting to a message saying to check the network connections. I checked everything I could think of before I finally took a picture of the message on the screen and sent it to my brother; he bought her this TV and did all the setting up, so he knows it a lot better than I do. A quick message back from him, and I found the setting that my mother somehow accidentally turned off. She has a habit of button mashing her remote control when things don’t work the way she expects, but when things go wrong, she has no idea what she did that caused it!
All in all, we were able to have a pretty good visit today, which is really unusual for the length of time that I was there. I really appreciate days like today. No personal attacks. No attacks on my family. Only mild attempts to attack my brother that I could easily address. No racist rants or bizarrely conflated topics she likes to rage about, even though she has no idea that she’s talking about completely different things. She still can’t figure out why she’s getting fundraising mail from a political party she is no longer a member of. I’ve told her, she’s on a mailing list and would need to ask to be removed. She things that “the government” (meaning, the federal government) is spending all this money to mail things out using taxpayer dollars. I’ve tried to explain to her that party mail is paid for by party members and party donations. They cannot use federal funds for stuff like this. I can tell she simply does not understand what I’m trying to explain.
One thing she did bring up is that she is noticing her own cognitive decline. She’s still convinced that she is dying, and told me she’s feeling all sort of pains, but it’s different now. How is it different? All she could do was vaguely gesture at her chest and stomach. She just doesn’t have the vocabulary, or understanding of anatomy, to explain what she is feeling and where. Aside from that, though, she’s finding it harder to remember words she uses regularly.
She’s still doing pretty darn good for being 93 years old! She does acknowledge that and is grateful for it. But she does need to be in assisted living of some kind!
At least she does live in town, and has home care coming in three times a day for medical assist with her prescriptions. The help she needs, though, home care out here cannot provide, nor can my siblings and I.
So we do the best we can. In the end, my mother really is doing amazingly well to still be living independently! I would not be at all surprised if she outlives us all. 😄
Anyhow.
Once done at my mothers, I got home while it was still light out (I am SO loving the longer days!). After the truck was unloaded, I made sure to check the ejector. The pump had gone off while my daughter was showering, and I could see by the melted splash area that the ejector still has a decent amount of pressure behind it.
On checking the pump, I saw the water level in the filter was getting low, so I topped it up again. After putting the lid back on, I could see air bubbling in from the intake opening as it started to drain. It has to be the back valve again. I took some video of the bubbling and updated my brother about it. He’s not saying much but, knowing him, he’ll probably find a way to come out this weekend to look at it again.
Tomorrow, though, we have to do a much needed trip to the dump, since we didn’t do it during our recent deep freeze. The dump is open longer hours on Saturdays, and I hope to get that done as early as possible. We’re supposed to be colder tomorrow, but nothing extreme. For the next while, it’s going to feel like spring!
After my brother discovered the rag stuck in the back valve on the septic pump, he made sure to give the valve a once over. It was in good working condition – once it was no longer filled with cloth! – so everything was put back together as it was, instead of being replaced with the not-quite-what-he-wanted new parts and pieces he’d found, after much running around in the city.
Once it was all together, the pump was working great again. It now runs so quietly, I can barely hear it when I’m sitting at my computer, which is pretty much directly above it. The filter, now that the pump was working right, actually filled more than we can fill it when we prime it, with water completely filling the dome shaped cover.
With all the troubles we’ve been having, I’ve been paranoid about it, and frequently go down to check when I hear the pump running.
Which is why I was there to notice that something had changed.
The water level in the filter was dropping, ever so slowly.
Each time the pump ran, instead of filling completely, there was space in the dome, and when it stopped, the level would be a little bit lower than before.
At one point, while watching it until the pump stopped, I saw it was low enough that I decided to prime the filter again. Once I filled the filter with water and closed it up again, I saw air bubbles coming in from the inflow opening and watched the level go down. !!! I filled it again and saw the bubbles again, but the water level stayed high enough to completely cover the inflow opening.
I told my brother about it, thinking maybe we need a new O ring after all, though it did seem well sealed when I opened it to prime the filter. As we messaged each other back and forth, he said that with the filter, there’s no way another rag or large object could be blocking the back valve again. He suggested I see how it’s flowing out of the ejector and compare it to the video he’d taken when we first got it going again. The problem with that is, even though the pump takes longer to empty the tank now that it’s pumping the fluid all the way out to the ejector, in the time it would take me to bundle up and walk over there, the pump would be done emptying the tank. The alternative would be for me to play with the bypass wires on the switch and have someone turn it on manually, after I’ve already gone out to the pump, and I really don’t want to do that!
Today, after we finished our running around, I was at my computer when I heard the pump start running while my husband was in the shower.
Which is when I heard that too familiar vibrating sort of noise.
I went down stairs to check. In the filter, I could see that it was mostly drained. There was inflow, but it wasn’t enough to fill even the bottom half of the filter while the pump was running.
I stopped the pump, primed the filter, then turned the pump on again.
The filter immediately drained, but there was no inflow anymore.
!!!
Priming process repeated. Pump turned on again.
This time, while it did drain quickly again, there was enough inflow that the water level reached high enough to cover the inflow opening, but that was about it. It never completely filled. I kept watching until it stopped, and even took some video to send to my brother.
While my brother is right that there is no way something large could get through the filter and block the back valve again, something occurred to me.
When we discovered the rag stuck in the back valve and my brother cleaned that out, neither of us thought to check the pipe from the filter to the valve. There’s a short length from the filter, which was still attached to the filter, then a short pipe with an elbow at each end that joined that filter outflow pipe to the back valve. That section with the two elbows was what my brother was originally going to replace with a new brass back valve, removing the one in the pump completely. What he hadn’t been able to find was the part he wanted that would attach to the pump where the original back valve is. The closest he could find was a steel piece, which would eventually corrode, but absolutely no one had the threaded piece he needed in plastic. So he was quite happy to be able to put the original parts back on again, which meant he could also return the parts and pieces he’d bought but never used.
So while it’s possible there might be something going on at the ejector, I think it’s the back valve again. I think it’s more likely that some sort of crud inside the pipe came loose, now that the water was flowing full power again, and instead of being washed away, got stuck in the valve.
Now, in theory, I could take that section off myself and check it. The problem is, I really don’t have the right tools for the job – my brother had to use his heat gun to warm up the plastic so he could get it apart, then put it back together again, for starters.
At this point, all we can really do it keep monitoring it. If it really is just a piece of crud that came lose and got stuck in the valve, it might just eventually get washed away.
Whatever the cause is, it’s very frustrating. It was working so well, then suddenly this is happening again!
At least, with the heat tape on the ejector, we know that shouldn’t freeze up again! The pump running with low flow again could potentially cause that to happen.
*sigh*
I was really hoping we were finally done with the septic system problems!
At -27C/-17F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F, my brother spent hours, here – most of it outdoors – getting things done.
The first thing was the no-longer frozen ejector.
When he arrived, he headed to the barn to get some stuff and I went out to join him. Along the way, I looked towards the ejector and got quite a surprise.
The tarp was gone, the sawhorse over the ejector was half knocked over, held in place only by the extension cord for the heat tape (safely secured), and the blue jugs from the liquid ice melter scattered in the snow nearby.
I don’t think my brother ever found the tarp. That part isn’t a surprise, considering the winds we had yesterday!
When we got to the basement, things there went quickly. The bypass wires on the switch was hooked up so that we could turn it on and off manually, rather than rely on the pill switch in the tank. The only difficult part was moving the emergency diverter off the pump without making too much of a mess. We knew there would be fluid in the pipe and I had a bucket ready, but there was just no way to get the diverter off and moved over the bucket without spilling at least some all over.
After the pipe to the ejector was put back, my brother and I fussed with our phones for a bit, so that we could communicate while he headed out to the ejector, then let me know to turn the pump on. We were able to make a video call, so when the time came, he had his phone set up so I could see the ejector.
The water flowing out of there was amazing! I’ve never seen it pushed out that far before (if I did when I was a child, I have no memory of it).
There was one odd thing about it, though. Instead of being pushed out in a steady stream, the bottom of the stream sprayed downwards, getting the stack pipe wet. My brother also saw water coming up from under the cap, which means the stack pipe was full, when it should have been drained by the venturi valve once water started to flow.
In the end, my brother found a piece of pipe he cut to create a little extender on the elbow piece.
He then dug around the barn and found bits and pieces to build a wind shelter around the ejector.
There’s a 1″ thick piece of rebar he hammered into the frozen ground to secure it, so the wind shouldn’t blow it away.
That rotten old sawhorse my brother dug out of the snow has sure come in handy!
All of this took at least a couple of hours, but we now have a working ejector again! No more emergency bypass draining the tank into the back yard!
The bypass is still there, though. I told my brother to leave it. I’ll take it out, put everything away and seal that opening up again, in the spring.
Then, before he left, my brother took care of a couple of other things, as well as going into their stored items.
Then he brought over one of his taller ladders.
Yup. He climbed up onto the roof to check the vent. The one warm day my daughters could have done it, one of them was in the city with me. The next day was the storm.
After clearing the area of snow, my brother ended up bringing a chimney sweep that’s stored in the barn to see if it was blocked. The non-sweep side could fit into the vent – and yes, it was quite blocked! I had a jug of hot water that he poured in, and the one jug was enough to clear it.
Meanwhile, I’d filled a sink with hot water to drain, so we could check if all was well.
All was well in the vent.
Not in the drain pipes!
The sink started to drain fine at first, and then it just sort of stopped. My daughter stayed in the kitchen to monitor while I went to the laundry drain.
Just in time to see the filthiest water coming out of there we’ve ever seen!
My daughter stopped the sink from draining. Thankfully, there was already a towel under the laundry drain, just in case, but it still took a while for the water to stop flowing. I was just heading out the door to tell my brother what happened when I heard something give, then gurgling as the water finally drained into the main pipe.
My brother thinks that the main problem is ice stuck in the pipe and suggested running hot water for a while. I suggested that clearing the vent knocked more gunk loose, too.
Thanks to the plumber installing the rubber connector in the pipe in the root cellar, this is something we can do ourselves. My brother had a few more things he wanted to do, plus take one last check on the pump (I had already taken care of the bypass and it was back to a pill switch trigger, instead of a manual trigger) before heading home. He told me that, as he was driving out here, he was seeing a vehicle in the ditch almost every mile of the way!
So we have had a major step forward, in that our septic system is up and running properly now – in fact, better than when we first moved here, thanks to getting that rag out of the back valve!
We had another step forward with my brother getting the ice out of the vent.
There’s just one step back, as our drain seems to be clogged again. We can use the kitchen sink, but it doesn’t take long before we can hear water backing up into the laundry drain.
That’s a job for this evening.
If all goes well, by the end of the day, we’ll be able to hook the washing machine discharge pipe into the drain again, and do laundry without running a hose out the door.
Not that we have any choice but to just run with the hits as they come.
With the main drain running from the kitchen to almost all the way to the septic cleared, we could finally do laundry without running a hose out the door to drain it. We did laundry all day before the drain was cleared, though, so it wasn’t until today that any of us needed to do laundry.
One of the things I wanted to do was run the tub clean setting, first, but we had a few extra grungy things in the washing machine, so that tiny load got done first. This new machine automatically adjusts the amount of water to the load, too, which is bonus.
The girls set the hose up before starting the load, but they can’t hear the machine from their “apartment” upstairs, so my husband and I were keeping an ear out. We didn’t hear anything unusual, but when I came out to check on things, I found water on the floor. It wasn’t flooding, as it has in the past. Enough that a few towels on the floor took care of it. I checked the drain pipe. It felt dry and I didn’t see wet underneath. The water and drain pipes are all framed with 2x4s, with cross pieces to keep things secure, and the lower one looked dry, too.
So we figured the problem was the discharge hose. It had been cat damaged in the past, and was taped up, but we figured it sprang a leak somewhere. My daughters taped it up as much as they could while I went hunting, ended up calling LG and ordering one in. It will be shipped by mail.
After taping up the discharge hose, the girls started the tub clean setting. After it ran for a while, I went out to check…
I immediately heard water splashing.
The drain pipe was overflowing around the discharge hose!
So I quickly paused the machine and threw a towel under to soak up some of the water – it’s a tight space and we can’t do much else without physically moving both the washer and dryer. The machine will automatically drain the tub when it’s paused or stopped, after a certain length of time, though – a protective feature so the weight of water doesn’t damage it – so we had to work fast. My older daughter came down to help while I started attaching the sump pump hose we use to drain the water out the storm door window. I got the hoses together, then my daughter started taping it while I started pushing the other end out the window on the door as fast as I could.
The water started draining while my daughter was still taping.
I dashed outside to straighten the hose out. With the tub clean setting, it was straight hot water. The water flowing through the hose melted a channel in the snow under it as it drained.
I didn’t fuss with it too much, though, and went back in to help my daughter finish securing the hoses together, then setting the rest up so there weren’t any lower hanging spots for water to collect.
Then we could restart the machine to finish the tub clean. I just checked on it again. The outside cats are VERY curious about the far end of the hose outside!
So while some water is going through the laundry drain pipe, it still must have a clog somewhere. I could even hear it trying to back up to the kitchen sink. The plumber worked on the pipe right near where the laundry drain reached the main drain pipe, so I know there is no clog near there. With the kitchen sinks, everything has been flowing fine.
But we still can’t drain the washing machine.
Wherever the clog is, the washing machine drains faster than the water can get past the clog.
Which has to be either in the P trap, which was replaced a couple of years ago, or in the short length of pipe from the P trap to the main drain pipe. I don’t think it’s the P trap that’s clogged, but I really don’t think it would be in the short length of pipe to the main drain pipe. Mostly because I could hear water backing up to the kitchen sink, so obviously, water it making it through to the main drain.
So why is it not only backing up and gurgling in the kitchen sink, but also overflowing the laundry drain? That’s a LOT of water to get backed up!
We’ve been diligent about following the maintenance instructions the plumber gave us, too. The pipes should be getting clearer, not clogging up.
I just don’t get it.
Meanwhile, we’re back to doing laundry with a hose out the door.
We also had no way of knowing how or why we were wrong!
My brother, saint that he is, came out today to work on both the frozen ejector and the septic pump problem.
My SIL dropped him off, as he would be taking their car that they loaned us, back. The first thing he did was head to the ejector – he was here for an hour before we even saw him! He set up a low power heater around the ejector and covered the whole thing with a tarp to hold what little heat there was.
When I came out to join him, I was surprised by how much is was snowing. There had been no snow at all when I did the morning rounds and opened the gate for them. We ended up having what felt like a light snow, though it was actually heavier than it seamed, it was so calm out, the whole time.
He had spent yesterday evening running around all over the city, looking for the parts and pieces he needed for the septic pump. With the water leaking out of the filter, he concluded that the back valve was leaking. The pictures he asked me to take and sent to him helped a lot, as he couldn’t quite remember the details on the pump.
Once he did as much as he could around the frozen ejector, I helped him bring in his tools and supplies into the basement.
He came well prepared. A habit he got into when he would come here to fix things for our late father, because all Dad’s tools were scattered all over, or “borrowed” by our vandal.
First, I need to explain what we were wrong about.
When we first started having issues, I was thinking the pump itself was the problem. I thought it was about 20 years old and, which all the plumbing issues we had and with it running dry for way too long at times, I was thinking it was wearing out. It was even starting to sound worse.
I was wrong.
My brother replaced the pump only about 10 years ago, got the best pump available at the time, and he had full confidence in it.
The company that installed the ejector also thought it was the pump, with not enough pressure going through the venturi valve, causing the ejector to freeze.
He was… partially right. There was low flow, so low pressure, but it wasn’t because of the pump.
Other thoughts from various people, including me:
– that there was an air leak somewhere in the pipes from the tank to the pump. – the O ring was failing – the pipe from the house to the ejector was starting to get filled with gunk – gunk from inside the pipe to the ejector was breaking loose and clogging the venturi valve – the ground around the venturi valve was too saturated (which may still have been a contributing factor)
While it sounds like we’re talking about two problems – the frozen ejector and the septic pump problems – once we set up the emergency diverter, we got more of a sense that the problem around the pump lead to the ejector freezing. Thawing the ejector is its own problem.
With the water draining out of the filter, my brother conclude that the back valve was broken and wanted to replace it.
He was half right.
He was going to replace a whole section of connectors and a bit of pipe, removing the original back valve completely, and installing a new one, in line.
I’ve actually uploaded a bunch of short videos, because photos could not do it justice. Here is the first one. Here, the section of pipe and elbow connectors has been removed, but not the back valve.
That is a BIG chunk of fabric! The fact that the pump worked at all with that in there is amazing!
With that filter installed after we moved here, we know it had to have happened before then. I don’t know when the other filter was finally removed, because it never worked. My guess is the fabric got into the pipes somewhere in that time between filters.
The only way I can think of how that got into the system is either by getting flushed down the toilet somehow, or it fell into the tank at some point when the lid was open.
It could well have taken years to get sucked into the pipe and work its way through all the elbow connectors. There are three on either side of the filter, and even when there was just a straight pipe before this filter was installed, the elbows were still there.
Then, once it got through the pipe, it got forced through the valve, where it could go no further.
Upon removing the fabric, my brother looked over the valve, and it was undamaged.
So he just put everything back together as it was, with fresh Teflon tape on the threads.
One of the other things he did was set up the switch by-pass. Right now, we have a switch on the wall to turn the pump on and off manually – but the pump won’t run unless the pill switch in the tank is high enough to trigger it. He’d set up the wiring before, but they were tucked behind the switch plate. He set the wires to they were now outside (after I turned the breaker off, of course) and connected them, so that when the switch was turned on, the pump would run immediately.
Before starting work on the pump, he ran it to drain the tank. It had run not that long before, so there wasn’t much in there, but he wanted to make sure it was empty before he started taking off pipes and draining what water was inside the pump itself. He was going to need to test it again later, so we had to run water for quite a while, just so he could have something in there to test the pump with, once everything was back together.
It takes a long time to fill that tank.
Eventually, though, we got it to the point where he could turn the pump on and test it out.
At the very end, you can see a sudden change in the flow. That’s when the tank was empty and the pump had to be shut off immediately.
What a thing of beauty. Everything was flowing well – just like when it was installed!
Which makes me think that piece of fabric was stuck flat against the inside of a section of pipe somewhere between the filter and the pump, because that filter and pump were working great at the start, and for quite some time after.
We’ve had other problems with the system that, in retrospect, were probably caused by that piece of fabric moving down the pipes a bit further, then a bit further, then a bit further.
There was absolutely no way anyone could have known.
Oh! I just heard the septic pump turn on as I write this. I’d checked the filter earlier, and it was completely full, and I know it’s pumping fine and faster than it has in probably years!
The only down side is the vibrate-y noises from where the emergency diverter makes contact with things.
Wow. The pump just turned off. That took less than two minutes, easily!
What an excellent pump.
I am so happy to be wrong about that pump!
Once that was done, my brother disengaged the bypass, so the pump would only turn on when triggered by the pill switch. My brother wanted to test it again, but it would take a while I left a tap running in the old laundry sink, next to the pump, but I made sure the rest of the family knew to use water, flush toilets, take showers, to fill that tank enough to test it again.
Then, it was time to head outside and work on the ejector.
In the first photo, you can see the fluid level is quite high, because my brother had poured in about half a jug of liquid ice melter – calcium chloride. This won’t damage the plastic pipes, but there is a brass fitting at the bottom that could potentially get corroded, but that would likely take a long time. Once things are thawed out, we can hook the pipe back on and anything down there will get flushed away when the pump sends fluid through.
In the next photo, my brother is using the heat gun on the copper pipe to try and get the ice inside the venturi pipe – the discharge pipe – thawed more. It had been frozen to the top before. When we got there and my brother started this, it was down about 2 inches. By the time we stopped, it was down about 4 or 5 inches.
We spent quite a bit of time out there in the falling snow, using the heat gun and the copper pipe and the calcium chloride to get more of it melted down. There was no way it was going to be thawed out completely, though.
For that, we used the heat tape that came in the mail yesterday. That’s the blue you can see in the third image. The glass tape that game with it wouldn’t stick, buy my brother brought electric tape that he kept in a pocket inside his jacket to keep it warm, and that worked. We ended up using the heat tape box to hold the sheet of metal roof out of the way, as it rests right against the pipe. Being frozen to the ground and covered in snow and ice, we can’t move it away. My brother dug through his tools in the barn and found something to bend it back.
The cap and elbow were put back on the ejector, but only loosely. We want to be able to pop them off easily to check on how it’s melting.
My brother did some scrounging and dug an old, rotten saw horse out of the snow to put over the ejector. This would keep the tarp from having contact with the ejector itself. The last thing we want is for it to snap off the elbow or something in the wind.
Last of all, the tarp was wrapped around the whole thing – black side out to absorb warmth from the sun (whenever we get sun next) and tied off a bit. If we get high winds from the south, it might still get blown off, but it can’t be tied down too tightly, or I’ll have trouble checking on it.
All of this took quite some time, with a few trips to the barn or the garage, etc. to find things we needed. At one point, I needed to go into the house. As I was leaving, I caught a light whiff of septic, so I went around to check on the outflow pipe.
The septic pump must have just shut itself off by the time I got there. I could immediately see a whole lot more snow had been washed away. In some areas, the flow goes under the snow, creating gaps in the snow above in places. While there was no water coming out of the outflow pipe, I could see through one of the gaps, water that was flowing fast. The pump was definitely working well!
Before he left, my brother checked the pump in the basement one more time – the filter was full to the top and the filter basket was floating, just like it should be – then checked the outflow pipe. He was surprised by the direction the water was flowing, but I wasn’t. There’s a reason I have a retaining wall at that end of the old kitchen garden!
Now that this is fixed, and we’ve had the clogged drained fixed, we need to use our water. Especially in the kitchen and laundry. We still need to set the washing machine drain hose back into the pipe – no one has needed to do laundry yet – and I plan to do a machine clean cycle. That uses straight hot water. We’re also going to keep up the drain maintenance routine we’ve already started, plus what the plumber recommended we do with the kitchen sinks every few days. Last night, I even flushed out the access pipe to the septic tank in the old basement floor with the hose, to make sure that second bottleneck was still clear. Having the laundry draining into the septic again should actually help keep that clear, too.
By the time my brother left, he’d been here about four hours, with a brief stop for lunch, working on all this!
My brother is allergic to cats, so I had lunch with him in his car.
Meanwhile, he can return all the parts and pieces he never needed to use, and get his money back!
We’re still blown away by finding that piece of fabric stuck in the valve. So utterly unexpected.
The fact that nothing was damaged by it is pretty amazing, too.
So we were all wrong about what was going on, and that’s just fine! With some of the possible causes, this is one of the easiest fixes there could have been.
As for the frozen ejector, it’s hard to say how long it will take for the calcium chloride to work its way down to the bottom. Then my brother will need to come back and switch the pipes so we can test it out and, hopefully, be able to leave it.
We might not be using the emergency diverter all winter, after all!
The important thing is, we can use our kitchen sink and laundry drain again! Yay!
We couldn’t wait until today to do our laundry, though, so yesterday we did something like four loads of laundry, with the hose draining out the door. The furthest end of the sump pump hose we’re using curls, preventing it from draining completely, so I kept going outside to lift the hose, from the door to the end, to get it empty before it froze.
This morning, we were expecting the plumber to arrive first, then a prescription delivery, hopefully before my daughter and I had to head out. My daughter had started her shower just as I was about to start heading outside for my morning rounds and to open the gate, when I heard a strange noise.
The septic pump had finally been triggered!
So I immediately dashed downstairs to check the filter.
Which was empty and running dry.
I shut the pump off, opened the filter, primed it again and turned the pump back on. It worked great! When it was done, the filter stayed full enough that the filter basket inside was floating and spinning slightly in the water – something I haven’t seen it do in quite a while!
From there, it was outside to feed and water the kitties, then do my usual checks, which this time included checking the outflow pipe. Everything looked clear, and there was no sign of backflow towards the house.
Yay!!!!
While doing my rounds, I got the truck running for a while, then popped in the OBDII scanner. The check engine light was on and the oil pressure gauge was still at zero. I did a full scan and got the same code as before: the oil pressure sensor that has already been replaced and cleaned.
At least it’s just triggering a check engine light, and not setting off the flipping alarm with the “turn off engine” warning.
From there, I cleared the codes and left the engine running until it shut itself off, as I’d used the remote starter to turn it on. Though it is much warmer today, I still plugged the block heater back in.
With our trip to the doctor’s office, though, I planned to use my brother’s car, which is parked and plugged in, outside. We had a bit of snow last night that needed to be brushed off, but that’s it.
Not long after I was back inside and checking the trail cam files, I got a call from the plumber. He was on his way and wanted to confirm directions to our place.
They can be a bit difficult to explain at times.
They got here soon after. Since the entry is where the laundry drain is, with the kitchen sink on the other side of the wall, I explained a what was going on there, then we went into the basement where I could show him the rest.
After looking over the pipes in old and new basements, as well as the plumbing under the sink, he decided to find a better way than trying to run his auger through where the last guy did. Access there is not easy, and it was put back together with adhesive. He didn’t want to cut anything there.
Since we knew the clog started past the laundry drain, he did it another way. He cut away part of the pipe in the root cellar, on the kitchen side of where the laundry pipe joined (not that he could have cut it on the other side, since it goes into a wall, there) and removed a couple of inches. It would then get sealed up with a rubber union and steel clamps, so that it would be easy to access, if we ever needed to have this done again. In fact, with our big drain auger, we’d be able to do it ourselves.
I don’t feel so bad about not trying to open things up where the other plumber went through now.
He used his smaller powered auger on the drain, and he really felt it when he hit the clog. After he worked on it for a while, with his assistant holding the other end of the pipe out of the way, he had his assistant go into the other basement to see if he could tell if the auger had reached the corner under the bathroom. I went along with him.
Not only had he reached the corner, but I could hear the tip of the auger rattling in the pipe near the old basement steps. He’d gone through the turn and was about 2/3s of the way down the other pipe to the septic tank.
After clearing things out, he sealed up the pipe, then headed for the kitchen to flush it. This will be our regular maintenance routine. He filled one of the kitchen sinks with straight hot water. After pulling the plug, he squirted some dish detergent into the vortex as it drained.
Then he did it again, with the other sink.
The first time, we could hear a lot of gurgling from the laundry drain pipe. A certain amount of that is normal, as we would be hearing the water pass by where it joined the main pipe. The second time he did it, we heard almost nothing from the laundry drain.
The assistant, meanwhile, was in the basement, making sure the new rubber union wasn’t leaking, and listening along the pipes. They couldn’t hear each other, so I went down and found him following the sound into the old basement. He could hear the water sloshing through the whole way.
I think the sinks were both filled and drained a total of three times each before he was satisfied.
I told him about what we’d found under the sink, and that my daughter had replaced everything but the trap, so he kept an eye on that, too. There were no leaks anywhere, so that was installed just fine.
While all this was going on, we chatted a fair bit. For some things, I explain the history of the plumbing, so far as I knew it. I even showed him our drain auger, and he quite approved. He let me know that, if we ever needed it, he does have a larger one. Hopefully, we never will!
He was one of the plumbers I have been talking to about the ejector, so while following the pipes, I showed him the diverter set up – and that the pump was triggered for the first time since the tank was emptied, just this morning. He was the one that has suggesting setting up an ice fishing tent over it with a heater, but we don’t even know someone we can borrow one from. He also suggested putting straw bales around the ejector, but we don’t have straw bales, either. We did get get straw, it was one of the big round bales, not the small square ones.
Oh, that reminds me…
While talking to the plumbing guy at the hardware store yesterday, we talked about the ejector and how to thaw it. He’s on an ejector system himself and said, this sometimes happen. I told him, it’s been some 50 years, and it’s never frozen before, so why now? He said it could be a few things and started listing some off. The only one I remember was when he said the ground could be saturated.
*dingdingding*
When they excavated down to the pipe to install the ejector, it was full of water. I even asked one of the guys if that was from the leaking old ejector, or if the water table was high. He told me it would be from the leaking ejector.
Which means the ground at the based of the new ejector was indeed saturated. Which would not have been a problem if this was done in the spring or summer. With nothing leaking anymore, it would have eventually drained away. The soil is clay heavy, so it might have taken a while, but it would eventually have dried up.
The ejector, however, was installed in… November? We were lucky not to have snow, which we did get, not long after.
Which means the water the drained to the bottom of the 4″ stack pipe had nowhere to go, and just kept building up and up, until it froze.
So… that rather eliminates any chance of us being able to use the ejector again until spring. The ground is already frozen, so even if we insulated around it, it wouldn’t make a difference.
*sigh*
We’ll figure it out.
The main thing is, we can now use our kitchen sink again!!!
In asking him why it would clog again so quickly after we’d already had it cleared just a couple of years ago, he said that having the laundry and kitchen drain into the main pipe so close together was not really an ideal situation. Between any grease from washing the dishes, to lint and such from the laundry, things build up pretty fast.
I’d been concerned about the pipe that didn’t get cleared, from the bathroom towards the septic. That, however, turns out not to be an issue at all. With all the water from showers and washing – even the toilet flushing – it would have kept that section of pipe pretty clear. There’s a lot less water running through from the kitchen to under the bathroom – and even less, when we started running the laundry drain outside. As the greasy water from the sink swirls its way down the pipe, the gunk would build up faster. Which is why flushing the drain with sink-fulls of hot water and detergent (he suggested using Dawn, as it is the best for grease cutting) regularly is recommended.
I asked him about using the bacteria and enzyme drain maintenance stuff, and he couldn’t really answer, as he doesn’t know much about it.
I also asked him about the possibility of the pipe from the house to the ejector getting clogged, and he said that was highly unlikely.
On top of all the other stuff we talked about, I mentioned that we want to replace the well pump, but there’s a risk of the foot valve breaking apart, so no one wanted to take the chance.
He pffffttt’d to that and said, just put in a check valve. No one really does foot valves anymore.
???
I’ve had three different plumbers look at that well pump. No one mentioned a check valve, so I asked him about it. He looked some up on his phone and found the style that would be used on our pump. He told me, just install that on the pump at the intake from the well, and don’t worry about the foot valve. Even if it breaks up, we’ll still get water.
I asked him, is this something that is new within the past few years?
Nope. They’ve been around for a while.
So now I wonder, why hasn’t any other plumber mentioned it??
Then, since we were walking around the three broken hot water tanks while looking around the basement, I told him about replacing the elements on the hot water tank recently, and what we found on the bottom. He told me, we need a water softening system to put a stop to that.
*sigh*
That’s something my husband has suggested, but a whole house system? That’s really expensive, and do we really want that for the entire house?
As to the cost, he was able to tell me that it’s $2500, installed, if he does it. He didn’t try to sell me on it; just let me know.
So all of that went fairly quickly. Before he left, I gave him my email address for him to send me the bill, so I still don’t know how much it will cost. I should get it tonight some time, but he told me that if I don’t, check my spam folder! That’s been happening a lot, lately, he told me.
That done, we can finally hook up the washing machine’s hose back to the drain pipe, but we haven’t done that, yet. Priority is catching up on dishes!
I wanted to head out early with my daughter for our appointment, but we still had the prescription delivery that I wanted to wait for first, so we could lock the gate behind us when we left. Not too long after the plumber left, someone used the washroom, and I heard the septic pump go off again. No surprise, considering how much hot water got flushed through the pipes!
I went down to check and…
It was running dry again.
I shut it off and primed the filter – the seal on that lid was quite tight – turned it on and it was working fine again. So fine, in fact, that it took only 2, maybe 2 1/2 minutes to drain the tank!
Hopefully, you won’t have to go to Instagram to wash this.
The moisture underneath is from the water used to prime the filter.
When it was done, the filter stayed nice and full. I paused to update my brother on it (I’d been keeping him up to date with the plumber the whole time, too). As I was doing that, I heard a strange noise from the filter.
You might need to turn up your volume to hear it. Somehow, there was air getting in.
I grabbed some paper towel and dried up everything around the filter and pipe joins, then watched and waited before checking them again. Everything was dry. There is no leak.
So what is happening???
One of the things I did a while back was put a brick and a very thin piece of Styrofoam under the filter to support the weight of the water in it. I ended up finding another thin piece to raise it up just a bit higher, so there is now no sag or play at all. I primed the filter again, and that bubbling did not happen again.
Were were good? I don’t know. But I did pass that on to my brother, too!
Not long after, the prescription delivery guy arrived, and my daughter and I were soon headed out to our appointments (after having to chase a kitten out from under my brother’s car!). We left early, making a brief stop in my mother’s town to pick up some lunch at the gas station – they had chicken kabobs available this time, which my daughter loves. Those sell out really fast, and they don’t seem to make more of them throughout the day. By the time we got to the clinic, we were only about 15 minutes early, so I’m glad we headed out when we did.
I went in first for my meet and greet. Her first question was whether or not I already had a doctor, and I explained about my previous doctor moving to another clinic, and having an interim doctor now. I’m sure she’d be fine to keep seeing me, but it’s just more convenient to have the same doctor as my daughter.
So this was mostly a question and answer session and I explained some of the issues I’ve been having, and she is now officially my doctor, too. I mentioned my painkillers just aren’t cutting it anymore, especially since I had to switch to acetaminophen. So I did get a prescription pain killer. I’d mentioned how bad the joint pain can get some days, where every joint in my body hurts. She asked me what supplements I was one, and I told her. She then recommended I go on a B complex instead of the B12 I’m on, as one of the other B vitamins should help me with the joint pain. She also told me to take double the recommended dose. I mentioned the Charlie horses I’ve been getting, but I have also run out of zinc, and suggested picking that up might take care of that, and she said yes. (I’ve also increased my salt intake, before I ran out of zinc, and that’s when the Charlie horses seemed to stop until just recently)
So once I was done, I went across the hall to the pharmacy to pick up the supplements while my daughter was seen next. Then I went to the grocery store that shared the parking lot and picked up a couple of small things we’d run out of at home. From there, I waited in the car for my daughter.
Which is when I got a test from my husband. He’s just picked up a call from the pharmacy for me. They’d received my prescription, and did I want to get it filled right away?
Talk about fast!
Of course, my husband had no idea what they were talking about, yet! So I called the pharmacy and said to go ahead and fill it, and that I’d likely pick it up tomorrow, since I was still in another town.
Then I got a message from my daughter clearing a calendar date in three weeks for another follow up appointment. So that was done, too.
My daughter got some adjusted medications and another prescription. Her bloodwork showed her to be vitamin D deficient. I wasn’t surprised by that. This is Canada, and it’s winter, after all! She has also been referred to an endocrinologist for her PCOS.
So tomorrow, we’ll both go into town to pick up our prescriptions.
This time, I plan to use the truck.
From there, we started for home. Along the way, we stopped in my mother’s town so I could go to a branch of my bank and take out cash, then we stopped at the home of the guy who empties our septic tank to pay our bill. With tip!
We made one more stop on the way back, at the post office. I wasn’t expecting any parcels yet, but there were a couple for my husband and some regular mail. The letter mail I’ve been waiting for since the strike delayed it, still isn’t in, though. This is getting ridiculous.
After that, we could finally head home. I’m sure glad for the longer days, as it wasn’t full dark, yet!
The first thing I did once we brought everything inside was do the evening cat feeding. My husband had let me know my mother had called (he does not answer calls from her), once I was settled, I checked her message. Apparently, when they delivered her new bubble packs, they didn’t deliver her inhaler. So I called her back and she told me her adjusted dose bubble packs were delivered, but there was no puffer. She then started going on about how it was a guy who delivered it this time, and she didn’t recognize him, etc. So I asked if she called the pharmacy to ask why it wasn’t there, and she said no, then tried to go back to talking about the delivery guy. I told her, she needed to call the pharmacy right away.
Which is when she asked if I could do it, because her English isn’t so good.
Ah. Okay!
Then she gave me the number, so I didn’t have to look it up.
The thing is, my mother’s doctor’s appointment was on Monday. Her prescriptions were delivered on Tuesday. Today is Thursday. Why didn’t she say anything on Tuesday??
So I called the pharmacy and quickly realized why my mother didn’t want to call herself. They have an automated answering service, which she has a hard time with at the best of times. With this one, after I made the first selection (after having to listen to a promo for vaccines first), it put me through another spiel for other choices. When I selected one of those, which turned out to be the wrong one. It took me to another and, as I was going through that, it started asking for things like the prescription number. WTF??? It did give the option to go back to a previous menus, and the net thing I knew, I was listening to the vaccine promo again.
I finally got to a real, live pharmacist.
They know be my now. 😄
When I explained what my mother had told me, the pharmacist said it was there. She’d put it in the bag herself.
I told her, my mother said it wasn’t, and she suggested it might be on the bottom of the bag, and described the box to me. It’s purple, so it would be easy to see!
I called my mother back and explained it should be in the bag with her bubble packs.
Oh! Let me go check.
It was there.
My mother had never looked in the bag. She had expected the delivery person to hand it to her seperately.
My mother was supposed to start her new bubble packs immediately, setting the current one aside, to be taken back to the pharmacy, so they could update the dose on one of her meds for her.
I didn’t get a chance to ask, but it sounds like she just kept using the same bubble pack instead of switching to the ones with the correct dosage in it.
*sigh*
I let her go, though, so she could go over the instructions for the inhaler.
I’m starting to wonder if she’s up to even using one.
Something I will have to follow up on.
Meanwhile…
This evening, I heard the septic pump go off again, so I went down to check. The filter was empty again! This time, however, I could see there was a very slow flow was water going in. It wasn’t running quite dry, but the flow from the tank was barely more than a splash. I stopped it and primed the filter again (it was tightly sealed), and it ran great after that. When it stopped, the filter was still full of water, and no sign of bubbles to show if there was some sort of air leak.
If this thing needs to be primed every time the pump goes off, that’s going to be a problem. I’m the only one that can hear it go off, and the camera I got to monitor it is going to be returned tomorrow, because it won’t connect to our WiFi.
This is incredibly frustrating.
If there is anyone more knowledgeable than me reading this and has some idea of what’s going on, please let me know! I’m running out of ideas.
As for me, I am done with this day.
I am so glad the plumber could come in this morning, and that we got that clog cleared. We learned a lot from him while he was here, too, and have steps to take to keep it from happening again – or at least keep it from happening again too soon!
I’m happy to learn about the check valve that would allow us to get that well pump changed and not worry about the foot valve.
I’m glad to finally and officially have a new doctor, and that my daughter got that referral to an endocrinologist, though it will likely take months before she actually sees one.
I’m glad the emergency diverter is working, even with the flow problems.
I’m thankful to have my brother’s car to drive today, even though it would have been just fine using the truck. I’m just paranoid about the truck. We need to get their car back to them soon.
I’m thankful for my other daughter’s financial help that paid for the septic guy, and is helping to pay for the plumber, too.
I may be done with this day, but it really was a very good day!
We keep several cat carriers in the sun room, so the cats will be used to them and hopefully not panic as much as we are able grab the more feral ones for spays and neuters. Sometimes, I will find cats just chilling in one of them.
Rolando Moon claimed it, this morning. 😊 Rondo Moon is the last of the originals, living here before we moved in, and cared for by my late father, still outside. We were willing to bring her in, and she has actually gone into the house voluntarily, then headed back outside. She has no interest in being an indoor cat!
Today is quite a bit warmer, as far as temperature goes, but I sure couldn’t tell when I did my morning rounds. It was -14C/7F at the time, but the wind chill was at -29C/-20F! The outside cats seem to be handling things well, for the most part. I haven’t been able to do a head count lately, but it does seem like there are fewer of them. There could be many reasons for that, but they move around so much, it’s hard to tell, and some show up for the food later on. I have seen cats going up and down our driveway on the trail cam, though, so hopefully they are just out visiting neighbours.
Speaking of cameras…
It looks like I’ll be returning the camera I picked up yesterday, to monitor the septic pump. It simply would not connect to our WiFi. It doesn’t tell me why. Just that it failed. We have two networks that I tried linking up to – one on our Starlink router, one on our Orbii router, which is there to ensure all parts of the house gets a good internet signal. It won’t connect with either of them.
Our septic pump still has not been triggered, so we still don’t know how well the emergency diverter will work until it does.
Meanwhile, we’re still dealing with the clogged drain to the kitchen and laundry.
My daughters tried to clear it again. This time, one daughter blocked the drain pipe for the washing machine while the other used the sink plunger in the kitchen. That thing does work really well!
Unfortunately, when my daughter uncovered the laundry drain again, gunk went shooting up out of the pipe! So the clog is basically right at where the laundry drain reaches the main pipe in the root cellar, causing anything from the kitchen to go up the laundry pipe instead of the main drain.
Once I had a chance, I made a couple of calls to plumbers. The first call, they were booked solid and new bookings are more than 2 weeks away. I had success with the second call. They, too, were busy, but his first response, when I told him what I needed done, was “definitely not today”. I asked about the next few days.
Long story short, he’s going to make us their first call tomorrow. Since they’re coming from the town to the north of us, they’ll get here around 9-10am. My younger daughter and I have our doctor’s appointments in the afternoon, but it should be done before we leave.
We might finally be able to do laundry without running a hose out the front door! That would help fill the septic tank faster, triggering the pump, so we’ll know how the diverter is working, too. It should be fine, but still… I’ve become as paranoid with our plumbing as with our truck!
I asked for some idea of what the bill will be. He said it depends on a few things, from how long it takes, to which machine he ends up using, etc., but might be as low as $150. I figure it will cost at least $300, but we’ll see.
So we have one more day of not being able to drain water down the kitchen sink.
I did get one thing planned accomplished. While doing my morning rounds, I used the foil insulation in strategic points on the outflow pipe for our emergency septic diverter. The pump has still not been triggered to empty the grey water, so this will ensure any contact point with cold supports will not freeze.
Hopefully. At least, if it does freeze there, it would be much easier to deal with it.
Once my morning rounds were done and breakfast was had, my plan was to head outside and start searching for something we could use to shelter the frozen septic ejector.
Then one of my daughters came over to let me know the kitchen sink was clogged. They’d started doing dishes, and the skinks would not drain. They did eventually empty, but very, very slowly.
My younger daughter – the only one able bodied enough to do this – cleared things stored under the sink to check the pipes.
Note the big crack in the brass fitting above the trap.
There was no way to take the trap off to clear the clog (drain cleaner did not work) without the brass breaking even worse.
Which meant a trip into town to get replacement parts.
That left me in a bit of a conundrum. The truck’s sensor issues are still a problem. I’d been idling the engine to get it to warm up and evaporate the moisture that is triggering the sensor, but the truck really needs to be driven. But the oil pressure gauge is at 0, and that check engine light was back on after I’d cleared the codes, yesterday. I could have taken my brother’s car, but he’s going to need that back, and this sensor thing isn’t going to go away if I don’t actually drive the truck.
But we’ve had so many things got wrong, I was really uncomfortable doing it. The truck had started fine, the engine is running smoothly, and the oil levels are good.
I ended up texting our mechanic and asked him is he was sure it was safe to drive – and to please humour my paranoia! 😄 He said yes.
I had wanted to go into town anyhow, to refill our water jugs, so I grabbed those and headed out, with a brief stop at the post office along the way. The letter mail I am waiting for still isn’t in, but a couple of packages made it, so that was good, at least.
The truck ran fine the entire trip, too.
Once at the hardware store, I got to talk to my favourite person in the plumbing department. He’s been helping me a lot!
After showing him the pictures, he gave me the parts and pieces to replace the brass T, making sure to get me the correct adhesive and explaining about putting it all together dry, first, then taking it apart to use the adhesive. We were pretty sure of the size needed, but if we were wrong, I could return the parts and get the right size.
From there, I made a quick stop at the grocery store to refill the water jugs, grab some pumpernickel bread, as the rye was gone, and ended up getting some lactose free cheese for the girls that was on sale.
When I got back, my daughter set about taking out the brass T – which turned out to have a lot more damage than was visible – then removing the trap to clear the clog.
It got rather messy.
Along with the parts and pieces, I picked up a drain clearer -, I don’t remember the proper name for it, but it’s a long flexible wire with a plastic scrubby tuft at the end. I also picked up a sink plunger. My daughter took everything apart and used the drain clearer on the pipes for as far as she could reach with it.
That got messy, too!
Then she put the trap back and moved on to putting together the new T pieces and do a dry install to make sure everything fit.
They didn’t.
It fit at the top, directly to one sink, and the bottom, to the trap. It was the pipe to the other sink that was the problem. The brass T’s fitting was almost flush, as you can see in the above photo. The new T’s fittings extended further. There wasn’t enough play in the pipe to be able to attach the T to the copper pipe.
That bit of copper pipe, meanwhile, was basically jammed into a length of PVC pipe, likely with the use of a heat gun. My daughter hoped to push it further in, just half an inch, but it just would not move.
Which meant cutting the copper pipe.
The 1 1/2″ copper pipe.
We don’t have a pipe cutter to do it. We could have used a hack saw, but the very idea of trying to cut a pipe in a crowded space – on that wiggles around, at that – was not acceptable.
Time to go back into town.
While my daughter was fighting with the new T, I had taken the time to clean the threads on the trap and was thinking it would probably be a good idea to get a new one. Just in case.
So, off to town I went!
By this time, several hours had passed, so my husband requested I make another stop at the grocery store for some heat and eats. No one was going to be making a from-scratch meal, today, that’s for sure!
I also brought along the brass T to show the guy at the hardware store. When I got there, it turned out he’d stepped out for something. I waited a while, looking at things and, after clearing it with my husband first (since it was coming off his personal budget), I picked up an indoor/outdoor security camera that screws into a light bulb socket, and has an LED light built in as well. This would go in the light socket near the septic pump, so we could monitor it without having to go up and down those insane stairs all the time! It used WiFi and an app to control and monitor it, and had a slot for a micro SD card. We have a couple of those handy!
They didn’t know when the plumbing guy would be back, so after I got the security camera, I went to the grocery store. It turned out to be really busy, and I found out why when I was asked if I wanted to collect extra points, or get 10% off.
I took the 10% off.
The plumbing guy was there by the time I got back. I showed him the brass part, and then pictures of my daughter holding the new T that couldn’t join the copper pipe.
After seeing more of the photos and how the copper pipe was installed, he was rather taken aback. That’s a pretty big no-no, and he was trying to figure out what was holding it in place. I told him, probably just friction. Why wasn’t it leaking? he wondered. I told him, that thing is NOT moving. It is completely water tight, and likely inserted with the use of a heat gun.
One thing was sure, though. I was not going to find a pipe cutter for a pipe that size. If we wanted to shorten it, we’d need to use a hacksaw.
He asked more questions about where the pipe with the copper piece led to, and I told him is was to the second sink.
Well, that gave us a solution.
He showed me a kit for plumbing a double sink. All the parts and pieces I would need, plus a few extras that wouldn’t be needed for our particular set up. He even took it out of the package and assembled it for me, how it would go under the sinks.
I talked to him about the trap, as I’d been looking at one that had a clean out opening. He agreed that would be the best. The only potential issue was the elbow part of it that joined the outflow pipe to the main drain. That part is sealed with adhesive. The U part of the trap screws onto that part and, in theory, we could remove the take off the new elbow and screw the U part onto the existing elbow, but with how old these parts are, the threads might not be the same. If they weren’t, we’d have to cut off the elbow and adhere the new one; there should be enough play in the pipe to handle losing that half inch or so.
There was a fitting that would be needed that I already had, with the parts and pieces of the new T we would no longer need, but I went ahead and bought another one. Having extra parts is always good!
This guy is such a help! It’s great to have staff that knows their stuff so well.
From there, it was home again. By this time, my poor daughter was really struggling. She may be the most able bodied of us all, but she does have other issues! Her PCOS really does a number on her joints, and she was losing her ability to use one wrist. I had suggested taking a break to have food, but since the dishes hadn’t been done, due to the sink being clogged, things to use to cook with were unavailable.
Plus, she just wanted to get it over with!
So I left her to it for a while, after bringing her what she would need to trim the length of pipe between the sinks to the right side, then started setting up the new camera before heading to the basement.
Long story short, I will probably be returning it. It simply will not connect to our WiFi.
*sigh*
It’s possible it might work somewhere not in the basement, but I bought it specifically so I could monitor the septic pump and area, so there’s no point in keeping it if I can’t use it there. There is nowhere else we would want to set up a camera that works by screwing into a light fixture.
Meanwhile, my daughter finally got to the point where we could test the sinks and see if anything was leaking.
Since we’ve moved here, we’ve replaced both sink drains, and installed the flexible water pipes with build in shut off valves, replacing copper pipes with no shut off valves. Now, we’ve replaced the rest of the pipes under the sinks, up to, but not including the trap.
At some point, my daughter used the sink plunger. Apparently, it did an amazing job in clearing crud out.
As we were cleaning up and putting things away – it was full dark by this time – my daughter realized she was hearing splashing noises.
That test we did to see if there were any leaks?
The water had overflowed the washing machine drain in the entry, and was splashing all over the floor under the washing machine.
We grabbed a bunch of towels to soak up the mess as best we could without actually moving both the washer and drier (there is a single step just barely in front of the washing machine, so it can’t be pulled out without moving the drier).
My daughter decided to try using drain cleaner and poured some down the washing machine drain pipe – we have an extra long, flexible funny just to access this drain without having to move the washing machine. She set a times for half an hour, before boiling water would be poured down, then took a well deserved break.
I used that time to set up the basins to wash as rinse as many dishes as I could fit in the dish tray. Once that was done, the dirty water could be tossed outside, since we can’t drain anything down the kitchen sink, still.
Meanwhile, my daughter was able to set a couple of baking trays in the oven for some of what I’d picked up at the grocery store for them, now that access to the oven was no longer blocked by a took kit and all the stuff that had been stored under the sink.
My daughter finally got to eat, after about 14-15 hours.
While all this was going on, I kept my brother up to date. We are at a loss as to why this main drain pipe is so clogged. We had it routered 2 or 3 years ago. The first time it had ever been cleared in almost 50 years. Why is it clogged again after such a short time? And this badly! We’ve been trying to be diligent in making sure nothing goes down the drain that shouldn’t, like grease and whatnot, and using the bacteria and enzyme pipe maintenance stuff.
We do have that commercial drain auger my husband bought for me. We just don’t have what we need to be able to open up the main line in the basement, then seal it up again properly.
My brother wondered if it was possible there was freezing happening. The pipe runs past the old basement window. That window, however, is currently filled in with 3″ thick Styrofoam insulation on the inside, and on the outside, it has what used to be a “roof” above the window, now leaning over it for protection from the elements. That entire corner, on the outside, is well sheltered.
My husband’s bedroom is right above this area, though, and he says he can hear the gurgling in the pipes, and thinks the clog is near that window. He may be partially right. However…
After the drain cleaner got to sit for half an hour, my daughter went to pour boiling water down. She poured straight from the kettle, which is 1.7L
I don’t think she got more than a litre in before it started to overflow the pipe!
Which means the clog is practically at the bottom of the drain pipe.
This drain pipe has been here since the house got indoor plumbing in the mid 70’s. While there is a washing machine in the entry now, when the new part of the house was added on, my dad had a sink installed in the entry, so that they could wash up from working in the barn or whatever, before going into the rest of the house. Basically, it was a mud room. My mother apparently hated have a sink there, so when they stopped having cattle, she put something over the sink and taps, covered it with a cloth, and put decorative stuff on it.
I found the original sink, and the counter it’s in, in one of the sheds.
When my husband and younger daughter came out several weeks ahead of my older daughter and I, my younger daughter helped my brother turn the entry into a laundry room, taking advantage of the existing plumbing, so that we wouldn’t have to go up and down those horrible stairs carrying laundry all the time.
Have a mentioned, my brother is awesome?
He has also been asking me to take pictures of various parts of the plumbing to send to him. I have no intention of asking, but I suspect he plans to come out here to see what he can do. He needs to retrieve his car, anyhow, now that it seems our truck really is safe to drive and is running quite well, in spite of a sensor telling us otherwise. My brother knows how to do this stuff, and has the tools – but they are mostly here, and scattered in different areas.
The alternative is to call a plumber to clear that drain again. Last I looked, it was a flat rate of $300 for a drain clearing plus 1 hour of time. Parts and more time extra, if it turns out to be a bigger problem. That was a few years ago, and I expect the prices have had to go up, with how much more expensive things have gotten since then. I’ve tried calling that plumber a few times since then, left messages and never got return calls. We used this company because it was the only one that had the big drain auger – they cleared the floor pipe to the septic tank, the first time we called them. This time, though, we have our own auger, so really, we could call any plumber.
But not today.
After all that fighting with the kitchen plumbing – which did turn out to be necessary, considering the condition of things under there – we still can’t use our kitchen sink.
At least the line from the bathroom to where it drops down to the septic tank is clear!
I have no idea what we’re going to do at this point. Thankfully, my older daughter was able to help with covering the cost of vehicle repairs and paying the septic guy, but that can get used up awfully fast! Just the stuff I got today is only because she was able to help out.
As for me, I am just tired. Mentally tired. So very tired of things breaking down. It’s been more than a year of one thing after another, and even when things get fixed – like the ejector, or that sensor on the truck – it’s still an issue.
This is really starting to drain everything out of me.
Not that it matters. All we can do is keep chugging along, making do with what we have.
For now, that means things like doing the dishes in basins and dumping the water outside, and having an emergency diverter attached to our septic pump to also dump things outside.
I think I need to make myself go to bed early, and try to get some rest. Thankfully, I’m not the one that had to crawl around under a sink, so I didn’t have any major exertions. Just walking around with my brother as he was checking the expeller and installing the diverter did me in, unexpectedly. It has been a long time, but at about 3am last night, it caught up with me and I got hit with Charlie Horses again. This time, both thighs, all the way around. All I did was try to roll over in bed, and that was it. Thankfully, my daughters were up and heard me calling for help, and my younger daughter was able to bring me some ibuprofen (acetaminophen doesn’t help for Charlie Horses) and stay with me. The attack – and that’s exactly what it felt like – ended as quickly as it started, which was the weirdest sensation. After all this time, going to bed now feels as risky and driving the truck with that sensor issue!
The Re-Farmer 